Sotto Voce Wine & Pasta Bar

Nothing special, over priced regular pasta, the portions are very small for no reason, the table I sat on was moving and the surface was not properly clean although I went on an empty Wednesday evening. save your money and go to another place

My girlfriend and I went here for a dinner that I purchased with a groupon. My only complaint was that she immediately (before we even had water) explained, in detail, the parameters of the groupon. Which detracted from the considerable ambiance. Perhaps, this particular server had had poor experiences with groupon customers in the past.
Other than that I had an excellent time and a wonderful dinner. We had the goat cheese and pear crustini, the beet salad, the meatball antipasti, the seared tuna entrée and the tiramisu. I haven’t a single complaint about any of them. In fact, I’d order them all again.

We had a fish and seafood dinner, everything was great. They were very attentive to our needs.
Service was fast, we were early so I’m not sure if it gets busy later in the evening.
Pasta plates are generous.

I came on a Saturday night with my boyfriend We made reservations so we didn’t have to wait since it was actually a pretty busy night. The weather was nice and the patio was pretty much completely full. Once we sat down, shortly after we were asked if we wanted drinks and the server was very knowledgeable and recommended something for my bf. She also let us know of the daily specials.
Once we decided to order, for some odd reason, we had another server that took our order.
We ordered the following items:
Daily special crostini with prosciutto, fig and goat cheese
Daily special– grilled calamari
Grilled Rack of lamb with rapini
Grilled New York strip loin
Side of their signature meatballs
I was quite disappointed with the grilled calamari as firstly I was not expecting the calamari to be sliced into small pieces; plus it was literally soaked in the tomato sauce. It was served in a bowl so it suppose to be a saucy dish– I have definitely had better grilled calamari at other Italian establishments.
I did not like the crostini combination as I guess I am not a fig-​liker– I didn’t think the flavours went well together and basically just took out the fig. The one part of the meal where I thought would be great was the meatballs, but they were dry and the mozzarella inside was not thoroughly melted and was chunky.
My lamb entrée was okay but I though lamb was a bit small in comparison to my bf’s steak. The rapini was also a little burnt so it wasn’t the greatest dish.
At the end, when we wanted to pay, it took quite a long time for someone to come over as I guess it got super busy and they were all trying to bring the food out. Service at the beginning was great, but at the end, it wasn’t so great.
I like Little Italy, so I will be trying a different restaurant next time.

Service is great in the beginning when we just got sat at 6:30pm. Appetizers were okay; ordered a crostini with goat cheese, fig & prosciutto, meatball sliders and beef carpaccio. Not much flavor in the carpaccio, for the crostini, it was toasted with goat cheese melted nicely but the prosciutto was cut way too thick. Should have been at least half or more thinner because it was just hard to chew off and was tough. The meatball sliders were nothing special, just meatballs in tomato sauce with arugula on a slider bun, but wasn’t toasted or anything, room temperature.
For mains I got a lamb rack, seasoning is okay, could of used a little more salt, other than that there was no other herbs seasoned on nor marinated. Feels like I can buy it in a supermarket and cook myself at home. Came with sauté rapini, wasn’t cooked through enough, still raw in the middle and still crunchy.
Also ordered a sirloin with frites. Sirloin was cooked to our request but as we ate the frites, we found a piece of hair in it, very disgusting. We told the server and she just threw out the plate and ask if there was something else we want. She wasn’t sorry for what happened, didn’t even feel bad.
Then we got seared tuna with mixed greens. Tuna was not seared on a hot enough surface, more meat was cooked then needed, it lacked seasoning and the mixed greens were tasteless. No seasoning in the salad and dressing was basically none but vinegar, that wasn’t what it stated on the menu.
There was only 3 kinds of desserts they offered. Got the vanilla ice cream with espresso and lemon meringue cake. They poured the espresso over ice cream melting it making it taste like cold espresso, nothing special. The cake was huge and overly sweet, none of the tables around could finish it and wasn’t anything spectacular.
I was disappointed and would not come back or recommend any of my friends.

There weren’t that many street meat choices as like other festivals I had attended, so we decided to go to Sotto Voce. The menu was decent enough and surprisingly the wait to get a table on the patio wasn’t too bad.
I understand it was busy there, but we had two different servers come to our table at multiple times. I know I’m not in the hospitality industry to understand logistics, but maybe some owners/​managers handle customer service differently.
Anyway we ordered a white wine sangria which took quite a while to get. Compared to the red wine sangria we ordered a few weeks ago at Milagro, I don’t know if it was worth the price. Hardly any fruits and it looked like more of a fruit punch.
We ordered a slew of appies — sliders, arancini and polenta fries. The polenta fries were probably the best part of the meals with the exception of the dipping sauce which was served in an espresso cup. The arancini and the sliders lacked flavour. I don’t know if I really felt that pine nuts were needed in the sliders.
At the end, the manager (I assume) was apologetic for the food and service. She mentioned to us that it’s «an experience» and hopes we come back to visit. Maybe she could tell we were disappointed. Who knows? This is why I jumped the rating from 2 to a 3.

Nice place to go for patio lunch or drinks.
Bruschetta was delicious. The olive oil was quite good that I asked what the brand was.
They have those San Pellegrino sodas (aranciata).
Service is friendly. If I’m ever in the area again during patio season I can see myself coming here again for sure.

(closer to 3.5 stars)
PROS
+ Customizable pasta dishes
+ Patio seating available
+ Servers seem to be knowledgeable about the wine list
+ Takes credit cards
CONS
— Patio tables are spaced too closely together
— Slooowwww service (understaffed)
— Antipasti plate was just okay
Came around 7pm as a group of 3. Initially we wanted to sit outside at the patio but we couldn’t find space to accommodate the 3 of us (only 2-​tops were available). We ended up sitting outside. With the wide-​open doors and windows we were still able to catch the warmth and summer breeze from outside.
We shared a bottle of the ALBARINO. As a chilled white it was plenty refreshing enough for a hot June evening but I found it to be a bit uninteresting and too light in taste to be memorable. It was said to be similar to the pinot grigio, which they had run out of. Our waitress seemed to be fairly knowledgeable about the wine list, which I appreciate.
We also shared the ANTIPASTI plate. Came with 2 kinds of charcuterie, sliced fresh mozzarella, 1 piece each of grilled eggplant & grilled zucchini, slices of provolone-​like cheese, and wedges of sundried tomato. Everything was in portions of 4 except for the grilled veggies. I guess the plate was meant to be shared between 4 people. It was strange to have to cut up the veggies to divvy up. The meats were good, the mozz was good, and the star of the plate was the sundried tomatoes. The provolone-​like cheese was unmemorable.
I had the DAILY PASTA #2, which on that day was penne rigate w/​hot italian sausage, sweet onions, & peas in a Parmesan cream sauce. I switched out the penne for spaghettini. I appreciated that the chef was able to accommodate my pasta request. The sausage was delicious — had a nice spicy kick and well-​flavored with fennel. Al dente pasta, just the way it should be. A solid pasta dish here.
My friends had the other daily pasta, an olive-​oil based spaghettini with various vegetables and shrimp; and the risotto with chicken and mushrooms. I found the pasta dish to be a bit dry. The risotto had a nice rich broth.
Service was extremely slow due to being understaffed. It took a long time to flag down our server each time, but she was pleasant and took good care of us in between running around.

I wandered over here with a date on a recent Saturday night. The weather was incredible and I was looking for a patio in Little Italy, which as everyone knows, is difficult to find when the weather is great. There were only two tables left outside, so we were squeezed in between two couples.
The tables were so close together that it was impossible for anyone to have private conversations. Me being the kind of person I am, I struck up a few conversations with the women on either side of me, which made my date a much more enjoyable experience (was that a low blow?)…
The wine list is quite impressive, though I ended up sticking with a non-​aIcoholic drink (very out of character for me). I ordered the beet and goat cheese salad and Le Date had the Caesar. I love goat cheese and beets, so I was really happy with it, but the Caesar was nothing to write home about. It consisted of just four pieces of Romaine lettuce and a smattering of dressing.
For the meal, Le Date had a sandwich (the only one on the menu and what it is escapes me) and he said it was very bland. I had the roasted garlic and chili pasta with olive oil. It was pretty good. I would normally have dessert (the options looked yummy) and coffee but wanted to split, so I will have to go back with different company.

The ambience here is wonderful. The wine list is exquisite. We had the Ripasso which was full and complimented the candle-​lit room. Also had a slice of Dufflet’s chocolate mousse cake which went well with the wine.
We got there around 8p on a Friday evening, and around 9p it got extremely busy. Be prepared to move to a smaller table if there are a larger group.
One of the nicer aspects of College & Manning.